Battlefield Guide Services

Thursday, April 24, 2008

"Oh Thank Heaven"


Remember that old ad line? It meant you could buy bread and milk at odd hours of the day. The babies would be nourished and wouldn't have to go to bed hungry. I remember when the Southland Corporation opened their first store in my area, just around the corner from our neighborhood in suburban Fairfax, Virginia. It was somewhere around 1968 or so, and the opening day my mother and I walked up the street for the first of what would be uncountable times to come. The clerk greeted us with toothy smile and handed me a big button with a cartoon store clerk and a dairy cow on it. "ME FOR MOO" was their slogan then. Remember, it was the all important milk at any hour. This was the novelty. Quite an experience for a seven year old, sucking down his first "Slurpee"!
What does all this have to do with Spotsylvania? Well... in a thinly veiled way... My wife and I were visiting our local place of purveyance last weekend, just inside the historic Spotsylvania Courthouse Area, and what was I buying for us? Coke Slurpees! As I was paying at the counter two bookish young men came in behind and asked the early twentyish clerk how to get to the Spotsylvania Battlefield. The clerk stammered and shrugged, and told them he was sorry but he had no idea! Now I know this young man is a local as he has worked behind that counter for better than a year but I guess he has never noticed the Park Service signs practically across the street from his employer. Hmmm... Well, as I turned to exit, two frosty 28 ounce cups in my hand, I caught the eye of one of the visiting fellows and directed them to follow me out the door. "Yes sir," he said politely, assured I held the secret to their quest. "Just take a left here, and go to the light. Take a right and follow the signs. You'll eventually see the monument where Sedgwick was killed." I felt comfortable they knew who Sedgwick was. "Thank you sir", they said and off they went. Interesting.

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